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Saturday, 25 October 2014

After their triumphant televised gig from Hyde Park, the critical re-appraisal of Jeff
Lynne’s ELO continues apace, with articles appearing in various ‘proper’
newspapers testifying to the quality of their music. Although I’m glad to see them
get what they deserve, this kind of thing just reminds me how silly it is to
pay too much attention to music journalism, to "fashion-monging boys, that
lie and cog and flout". For those
not old enough to remember, it was precisely the opposite of ‘cool’ to like ELO
in the late 70s, when the rock cognoscenti would heap opprobrium on them at
every opportunity. The fact that they were clearly a quality pop act counted
against them. Certain bands (usually accomplished musicians who had paid their
dues over many years on the club and university circuit) were seen as the ‘enemy’
by portions of the British music press, some of whom believed that punk had
‘happened’ in order to rid the world of light and shade. Surfing against the zeitgeist, ELO represented the
epitome of naff. I remember one particularly silly example when the band was butchered
on Radio One's Round Table because -in the opinion of some jerk on the panel-
the French bit of the lyric on Hold on Tight sounded more French-Canadian
than 'genuine' French (clearly a heinous crime). When I was young and impressionable, it was difficult
to own up to liking stuff that had not been approved by the taste-makers in the
music press, particularly the resident high priests at Sounds and NME. Nobody wants to betray their own generation
and there was a time when admitting that you preferred ELO to the Sex Pistols would
have been a hanging offence.

By today’s
standards, the band took the long road to stardom. Their early records showed
promise, although some of the songs were overwrought and stodgy and the sound
was often grittier than it had to be. After three albums in which they couldn’t
make up their mind about whether they wanted to be heavy (always seen as a good
thing) or light (almost never seen as a good thing), band leader Jeff Lynne finally
hit his songwriting groove on ‘Eldorado’. For the first time, an orchestra and
choir were hired to expand the musical palette (on previous albums, the
cellists had been overdubbed). That fourth album marked the spot where the
focus moved joyfully and unashamedly to the tunes.

By the time
they hit the high spots in their catalogue (‘A New World Record’ in 1976 and ‘Out
of the Blue’ just a year later) ELO had graduated from the dingy hinterland of
prog rock to become a sophisticated pop act on the way to selling 50 million
albums. The visual template for tribute acts was set at this point, with Jeff adopting
that ‘shaggy perm, beard and shades' look. It’s clearly a disguise, because he is essentially
a modest and unassuming bloke who chooses to put his art front and centre of our
attention. It’s not about him, the image is suggesting; it’s about the tunes. It’s about
the sound of the music.

I can think
of loads of acts that I listened to in the late 70s /early 80s that don't do
anything for me now; by contrast, the albums from ELO's imperial phase still
sound fantastic. There are many things
to love about their music (personally, those ‘major to minor’ chord changes on
songs like Livin' Thing and Turn to Stone get me every time), but there is
no point in trying to analyse why it has taken some people so long to work that
out. There
was a time when nobody would have admitted to liking them and at least that
seems to have changed. It could be that some folk have mellowed with age, or perhaps new listeners are just experiencing the music without having to put
it through the 'cool /uncool' cultural filter that was compulsory in the
fallout from the cultural revolution of the late 70s. Either way, I'm just happy
to enjoy the moment and hope that it encourages Jeff Lynne to hit the road once
more, hopefully with something resembling the spectacular combo that featured
at Hyde Park.

In the meantime, here’s a
link to one of my favourite internet musical discoveries. It’s the Sunflower
Orchestra performing their version of one of ELO’s most beautiful
songs. Other than the fact
they are Polish, I know nothing about the Sunflower Orchestra. It looks like
their gig took place in a community centre with maybe twenty folk in the
audience, but the performance was measured, dignified and faithful to the melancholic
beauty of the original. For someone not noted for being much of a lyricist,
Jeff Lynne comes up with a lovely image on the chorus in which he expresses loss, regret, longing and the ebbing away of hope
with this single evocative line: “My Shangri La has gone away, faded like the
Beatles on Hey Jude.”

About Me

A few years ago, I promised that I would never start a blog; this is it.
On this blog, I plan to respond to real (or imagined) slights by posting coruscating put-downs of my enemies, competitors and -occasionally- friends. I also plan to maintain the acrimonious simmering of a series of longstanding grudges and petty disputes.
But mainly, the blog will faithfully record a pointless and pedestrian series of idle musings, attempted libels and ill-considered theories about popular culture, sport, politics, music and the meaning of life.
For the last couple of years, I've been writing about an album I'm recording; yes, it's nearly finished.
The views represented on this blog are not necessarily endorsed by the author, unless they are.